What a Lovely Day
by emily9
Summary: This is a short story i wrote after reading Dickens' "Great Expactations." I rather losley tried to update on of the ideas Dickens looked at, misconceptions about love. The story takes a rather dry, cynical look at a wedding day.


What a Lovely Day  
  
The Church was an old man, a perfect contradiction, stately and stable yet withering and wasting away, with a strange dilapidated, neglected beauty and an odd musty smell that is always there, no matter how many times you clean it. It was dutiful, gracious and so lovely to look at, perfect for a wedding.  
  
The frantically relaxed swish-swish-swish of tulle was the only way in which Julia could manage to give voice to any thoughts that day.. The backroom of the church, which had been transformed into a changing area for the day, been transformed from the nondescript little room where the urn and spare robes were kept to a shrine to 'femininity' or more realistically 'girls-playing-dress-ups'. It was covered in pink satin, white tulle and the bouquets, which had taken such planning and deliberation, had been admired, flung, tossed, placed, lost and thrown all over the room. Everything was ready for Julia's big day. It was funny how it had stopped being Julia and Simon's big day only weeks after the proposal and all men seem to evaporate; they were irrelevant and almost completely unnecessary for the wedding, cardboard cut outs would have done just as well. There was a strange silence as the last of the primping and preening was done and Simone made the mistake of trying to break it. She managed to break not only the silence but also Julia's nerves when she asked the completely irrelevant question of, 'Is Simon excited?' Julia turned and turned towards the bridesmaid with a blank look on her face, trying to register who she was talking about.  
  
After all she had her hair, her make up, not to mention the flowers to worry about, she couldn't waste her time thinking about love on a day like this.  
  
The alter boy was thinking about sex, Julia 's older sister was thinking about her own failed marriage, Simon's uncle was thinking about the free grog and no one knew if Julia's Granny Marie could think at all any more. Lovely.  
  
Simon hit his head hard with the back of his palm, physically trying to remove that voice form his mind, the soft, slurring, strangely seductive and, now he was sober, sickening voice. His body shuddered involuntarily when he thought of her and the bar and her and the bed and her and him and her.. When he thought of Julia's trusting face and compared it to hers. It dawned on him he didn't even know her name. It was just 'she' and thought he knew it wasn't fair, she didn't deserve any better. But then again, neither did Simon. He felt the guilt, disgust and bile all rise through his body simultaneously and tried to think of somewhere to empty his body, to cleanse himself, but the alter of a church on his wedding day hardly seemed the appropriate place. Trying to construct a defence, all the time knowing he wasn't going to believe what he was telling himself but continuing. He reasoned that he hadn't even wanted to have a bucks night, but then Julia had insisted. '.I want you to have one last night of fun with your friends.just to make sure you wont mind being stuck with me for the rest of your life.' She giggled when she said it; sure that these words were just stupid rambling they didn't really mean anything and nothing would come of them. Every trusting sentence, unquestioning word and confident syllable span around his head, in some kind of demented dance, growing louder with every circle they made. It was less painful if he tried not to think of how he felt about Julia. He blocked the thought from his mind and thought of what he had to say not as a declaration of love, but lines in some strange dramatic performance. A story that didn't make any sense. It was .well it wasn't a love story.  
  
Simon's brother was thinking about the races that he was missing to be here and that Rosehill would have already finished. Their mutual friend Estella was regretting introducing the two as she found weddings repulsive but couldn't refuse the invite and Simon's mother was once again thinking about how much better the cake would have looked if she had been aloud to make it. Lovely.  
  
John's fury mingled with a sly amusement, a strange contradiction he knew but he couldn't help it as he watched her walk down the aisle in that white dress. Not that she didn't look lovely, stunning in all truth; it was he white which got him. He thought back to those days at university and remembered all those things that he was sure you weren't meant to think about in church. They had broken a commandment or two. He wasn't sure why he had been invited. Was Julia trying to prove something, was she trying to Show Simon what she had given up for him or did they just have an odd number of guests and had randomly picked his name out of her old address book? He looked at her again and felt something stirring.well not with in his chest, but it was definitely stirring. Another glance and her in that meringue and his heart was filled with love fore her.well technically it was lust, but it was full of something and that as what counted right?  
  
The caterer was thinking about wether he would get away with having put bacon in the vegetarian hors d'oeuvres, Julia's cousin Sophie was wondering if it would be a good day to announce her homosexuality and the flower girls were just bored. Lovely.  
  
Clara turned around, struggling to keep the smugness hidden behind the sophisticated with a dash of overwhelming joy mother of the bride mask she had practiced for so long. She was fighting a losing battle to say the least. But why shouldn't she gloat? Molly, her older, prettier, smarter sister had always had one up on Clara, always one step ahead, always the first. That had changed 28 years ago. Clara couldn't remember what she was wearing when John had proposed, she couldn't remember what shop she had bought her engagement ring at, she could hardly even remember the exact word John used to ask her to be his wife. But she could remember Molly's face. That was the single most satisfying moment in Clara's life, she was the first to get married, she had the limelight, she won. And now it was about to happen again. Her little baby Julia was going to marry before any of Molly's kids. She had spent hours listening to Molly rave on about Sarah, who was madly in love with some young man. She couldn't have cared less. Unless there was the ring on the finger, the cake was made, and the church booked, it didn't count. Clara won a second time round. She loved the feeling.  
  
The photographer was thinking about needing to go to the toilet, Simone was thinking that yellow bridesmaid's dress didn't really suit her complexion and Julia's father hadn't thought of a thing except how much it would all cost. Lovely.  
  
Father Reily looked around at the young, and to use the cliché, radiant bridal party as they posed for the photographs on the front lawn. 'Loves a wonderful thing and it really is a lovely day for a wedding!' he exclaimed. The little priest cackled away at his own stab at humour. "Lovely Lovely, Lovely' 


End file.
